The Note: Kennedy Crowds Out Even Clintons on Opening Night

Michelle will be the evening’s star, and Hillary and Bill will always be good for the drama — but only Ted is the inspiration.

This is one of those rare cases where Sen. Barack Obama won’t mind seeing his message overshadowed — even though it’s opening night of his convention, and even though the marquee player is supposed to be his wife. (Every Kennedy moment is a Clinton moment that isn’t.)

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., will provide an emotional lift, an all-time convention highlight, a room full of tears, an ovation delegates will never want to end — plus a cementing of the ties between the Kennedy legacy and Obama.

“The senator has recently told people that he has a speech written for the convention and that he badly wants to come, pending a final medical consultation,” Susan Milligan reports in The Boston Globe. “Buzz has built among Massachusetts politicos that Kennedy would come, and yesterday a Bay State Democrat close to the family confirmed that Kennedy has decided to travel to Denver, probably for an opening-night address.”

You think that’s dramatic? Check back in with the Storyline That Will Not Go Away — the one not even delegate talking points can subsume.

The peace offerings are nice and genuine; in truth, convention disruptions may hurt Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton even more than they hurt Obama, and the Clinton folks have begun to realize that.

There’s the symbolic “release” of her convention delegates, full representation for Florida and Michigan — and amid the final negotiations, perhaps even a shelving of the roll-call vote Obama never wanted, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reports.

“She’s the question of the convention,” Stephanopoulos said on “Good Morning America” Monday. Clinton folks “don’t want to get blamed for a bad convention.”